Air cooled cloud chambers

At the beginnings (2010), I known nothing about cloud chambers. I saw a Phywe phase-change cloud chamber in a museum and was impressed. I decided that I should make one, but only a small version and something that I could build. The first project was to build a thermoelectric, air cooled cloud chamber which was easy to build, in order to understand how a cloud chamber work.

This page presents all the attempts to build something functional.

Air cooled cloud chamber V1

This version use two peltier as active surface (the two peltiers are stacked). Surface of interaction : 4 x 4 cm. A sponge is used as an alcohol source. Later, the chamber is made with a glass container.

The wire on the surface was for test about the electric field. Putting led in the chamber was not a good idea (create turbulence from Joule effect).

Air cooled cloud chamber V2

Basically the V1 version + two more peltiers. Surface of interaction : 8 x 4 cm. Vapour of alcohol are produced from felt on the top.

Air cooled cloud chamber V3

Basically the V2 version + two more peltier. Total of peltier : 6. Surface of interaction : 12 x 4 cm. A little guide is provided if you want to build this one. See here. This machine still need an external power supply.

After this machine, I was physically stuck with aircooling. I could add a 4th radiator and 2x more peltiers, but the airflow won’t be enough to have enough cold temperature. The colder is the surface, the more you have molecules of supersaturated vapour. The tracks have a bigger density (with the number of droplet) and the thickness of the sensible layer increase. The quality of seeing is direcly dependant about the coldness of the surface. So i decided to use an another coolant : water.